Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Bilingualism across the lifespan: an introduction
- 2 Early differentiation of languages in bilingual children
- 3 Variation in children's ability to learn second languages
- 4 Idiomaticity as an indicator of second language proficiency
- 5 Prefabs, patterns and rules in interaction? Formulaic speech in adult learners' L2 Swedish
- 6 The imperfect conditional
- 7 Spanish, Japanese and Chinese speakers' acquisition of English relative clauses: new evidence for the headdirection parameter
- 8 Distinguishing language contact phenomena: evidence from Finnish–English bilingualism
- 9 The boustrophedal brain: laterality and dyslexia in bi-directional readers
- 10 Deterioration and creativity in childhood bilingualism
- 11 Crosslinguistic influence in language loss
- 12 Bilingualism in Alzheimer's dementia: two case studies
- 13 Language processing in the bilingual: evidence from language mixing
- Index
4 - Idiomaticity as an indicator of second language proficiency
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Bilingualism across the lifespan: an introduction
- 2 Early differentiation of languages in bilingual children
- 3 Variation in children's ability to learn second languages
- 4 Idiomaticity as an indicator of second language proficiency
- 5 Prefabs, patterns and rules in interaction? Formulaic speech in adult learners' L2 Swedish
- 6 The imperfect conditional
- 7 Spanish, Japanese and Chinese speakers' acquisition of English relative clauses: new evidence for the headdirection parameter
- 8 Distinguishing language contact phenomena: evidence from Finnish–English bilingualism
- 9 The boustrophedal brain: laterality and dyslexia in bi-directional readers
- 10 Deterioration and creativity in childhood bilingualism
- 11 Crosslinguistic influence in language loss
- 12 Bilingualism in Alzheimer's dementia: two case studies
- 13 Language processing in the bilingual: evidence from language mixing
- Index
Summary
Introduction
The issue of conventionalized language (idioms, formulas, prefabricated patterns, etc.) has long been a problem in linguistic theory, albeit a relatively marginal one. Despite the high frequency and pervasiveness of these forms and the efforts of a few interested linguists, conventionalized language has never really found a clear place in theories of language (Jespersen, 1922; Katz and Postal, 1963; Austin, 1965; Chafe, 1968; Weinreich, 1969, 1972; Searle, 1969; Newmeyer, 1972; Fraser, 1970, 1971, 1976; Mitchell, 1971; Makkai, 1972, 1978; Ferguson, 1976; Bolinger, 1977; Fillmore, 1979, 1983; Wood, 1986; Wierzbicka, 1987). This literature will not be reviewed here; the theoretical background it provides, however, has greatly influenced the research reported here and the work of the other applied linguists that will be mentioned.
Probably because of their interest in language use, various kinds of applied linguists have also dealt with conventionalized language. Their individual interests and foci have been so disparate, however, that their work cannot be said to constitute a coherent background (Whitaker, 1971; Brown, 1973; Clark, 1973; Hakuta, 1974; Wong-Fillmore, 1976; Peters, 1977; Fraser, 1978; Scarcella, 1979; Coulmas, 1979; Yorio, 1980; Ellis, 1984; and others). Neither has recent work in the area of speech act acquisition in a second language, by researchers like L. Beebe, S. Blum-Kulka, C. Candlin, A. Cohen, M. Eisenstein, G. Kasper, E. Olshtain, N. Wolfson, and others, yet crystallized into an integrated theory (Schmidt and Richards, 1980).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Bilingualism across the LifespanAspects of Acquisition, Maturity and Loss, pp. 55 - 72Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989
- 48
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